


Beautiful

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Break Up, F/M, Harry Potter Next Generation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-16
Updated: 2012-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:04:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3703693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Victoire's hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Speed of Lightning Competition](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/44309/58599795/1/).

With magic, anything is possible. Victoire can have doll-like curls one day, waves the next, straight the following. Victoire can lose her hair one day, and have shin-length hair the next. So she does.

She cuts her hair when Dominique is old enough to realize what fun pulling hair is. It's short and she hates it and Fred makes fun of her.

She adds waves in her hair when she visits Shell Cottage in the summer, and she won't let the salt leave her hair for weeks after she leaves.

Her hair is shoulder-length after she overhears Teddy saying he doesn't like girls with long her.

She cuts it in a short bob cut when she hears stories of Alice Longbottom, most amazing female Auror in history.

She makes it long, butt-length when her mother tells her she's too pretty to be an Auror, and Teddy off-handedly agrees.

She dies it red when she visits her grandmother's house sometimes, because Molly always compliments it. She wonders if Molly knows she's a natural blonde. Molly hasn't been right in a long while.

Red hair looks good on her, so she keeps it her seventh year at Hogwarts. Teddy doesn't say anything. She realizes she likes him when he's quiet, and wonders what that says about her. She dates him anyway.

She dies her hair blue after Hogwarts, to show the world her appearance won't be restricted by Hogwarts' silly rules anymore, and reverts to blonde the very next day. She wonders when she grew up, when she realized rebelling is boring, when she got back together with Teddy again.

Her hair is shorter when Teddy proposes, and she grows it long the natural way the months before their wedding. They want a spring wedding.

She wakes up in the spring and realizes she hasn't changed her hair in months. When did she stop? She adds highlights—blue, like the waters at Shell Cottage—and breaks off her engagement. When did she fall out of love?

She dies it red when she goes home, and ignores her sister's hopeful look. Dominique can have him, if she wants.

Victoire's pretty with red hair, she realizes. But she's pretty with everything, and Molly isn't there to compliment her anymore.

She sits in front of the mirror and makes herself ugly. First, the pretty blue highlights go. She makes herself a brunette. She looks like Roxanne. She turns it blonde, white-blonde, and makes it short, shorter than it's ever been. She looks like Louis. She dies it brown again, and hates the way she looks. It's perfect.

Teddy visits her just once, and sees her new hair. "You love your hair. Why do you love it and not me?"

She cries on Louis's shoulder that night.

"I'm incapable of love," she tells him, like it's a truth, like it's a lie.

"Then why are you crying?" he asks, and she cries even more. She doesn't know. She doesn't know anything, it seems.

She lengthens her hair for a week, ten centimeters a day, after she finds out Teddy is dating Dominique. Then she comes to Louis's flat, kicks out his boyfriend for the night—he's blond and she wonders if Louis looks for mirrors, too—and sleeps in Louis's bed, like they did when they were little. Louis's arm is strong and comforting when it rests around her waist.

She wakes up with blonde hair. It's the first time it's ever changed without her permission. She looks like Louis's twin. She keeps it. She keeps Louis, too, creating another bedroom in his flat. It's lopsided, and the bed keeps shifting like it knows it's on uneven flooring, but Victoire doesn't care.

She fills out her Auror application at the Ministry, and sees a wall of pictures. Are they there to dissuade the weak, this row of dead Aurors? On a whim, she finds Alice Longbottom.

She doesn't look like her, Victoire silently admits. Her childhood fancy has evaporated by now. But that's okay, because one day, Victoire will be on that wall, and Alice Longbottom will be the second best Auror to ever live.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
